Whoops - Meeting With Bandar (3)

    I met with my conversation partner again last week but completely forgot to write about it till now so here it goes.  We met up earlier than usual and sat down at our usual spot in front of 1873.  He told me about how he was going to be traveling to Dallas that afternoon to check out a car he hoped to buy.  I talked about my new car, a mustang, and we both got to share our appreciation for nice cars.  He said that he was looking for a used luxury car but that many of the cars he had tried out were in bad condition.  One of the phrases Bandar says a lot when he dislikes something is "no way." He described a Lexus he had tried that was gross and gummy, "no way, no way," he told me. 

     Later we talked more about his family and about his parents.  I learned that his mother used to work in an education department but that she no longer works. This was funny because my mother didn't work before but now she works an office job at a University.  He joked to me that his mother now spends all her time asking when he is going to get married.  He explained that it is common for people to get married early on where he lives but that he is here to study and is in no rush to get married.  I empathized with this because Texas is very different from my home in California with its views on marriage.

    Neither of us had big plans for the weekend at the time so I talked to him about my living situation last year and how hard it is to share one room between two people at times.  Somehow we got on the topic of my roommates and how I was one of the youngest.  He laughingly told me he felt very old when he found out I am 19.  We both agreed that it is good to travel and experience the world now before different responsibilities and difficulties arise later in life.

    I asked him more about how his classes at TCU are run and where he takes them.  He told me about how he was struggling with some of the English language rules and spelling.  All letters/characters are pronounced in Arabic and so he does not understand why some of our words have silent letters.  He then went on to tell me he had to write a brief paper about our meetings that day and that he misspelled my name "Shlby." I laughed as he explained the conversation that him and his teacher had after she told him it was wrong.  He also explained that people from his country see everything very logically and that when teachers say "because" as an answer it frustrates him a lot.  "How am I supposed to learn if there is no rule?" he asked me. I agreed that the English language is very unfortunate and then we talked a bit about my last name, which is japanese.  It was a pretty good meeting and although I was tired I think we both managed to get a few good laughs in.